Lady in Red (12 page)

Creaking branches and the mournful wind spun around them as she faced Edward.

He stood helpless before her. The Duke of Fairleigh, the man who’d been at turns so kind and so unyielding in his desire to help her. The sight was miraculous and tragic. She didn’t know what to make of it. “I assume you are unaccustomed to being speechless?”

He drew in a long breath, his gaze askance as if he couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. “I haven’t felt quite this jarred since the day they hanged my father. If you must know.”

Mary’s stomach clenched. She must have been a little girl when it happened, or else she would have known. Such a thing would have been cried to every corner of the empire. “I apologize. I had no idea.”

He swung his gaze back to hers, a twisted amusement sparking in his black orbs. “It is refreshing to meet someone who might possibly understand my own history. Only you, Mary, could understand the horror . . . the need to forget.”

Her thoughts shifted from her mother to his ghosts. Ghosts buried so deep they were but a specter in his eyes. “I do understand,” she said simply. “This world . . . its only constant is in the unreliability of people.”

“I was certain my father could never die, powerful, larger-than-life man that he was. I never dreamed he could be taken at all, let alone in such a manner. And you? I envisioned you trapped with an abusive husband. It never occurred to me that—”

She cocked her head. “I had been locked up with the bumble-brained?”

The muscles in his jaw flexed with anger. “How can you make light of it?”

“I don’t usually, but what would you have me do?” She gestured to the lonely stone crypt. “Throw myself on my mother’s grave and weep? Hardly necessary or helpful.”

He inclined his head. “In that we are the same, then.”

She lowered her arm and lifted her chin, clinging to her defiance now that he knew a part of her secret. “So now you know what you wanted to know.”

“How are you here now?” he asked.

She clenched her teeth, a dose of terror rolling over her.

“Mary?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, seeing the blood, feeling flesh give to iron. “I escaped.”

“My god. How?”

She opened her eyes, determined to make him understand that there was no going back. That she’d done unspeakable things. It was too late to hide those things from Edward now. He already knew too much. “I attacked a keeper. I may have killed him. And I escaped.”

She waited, standing rigid for his judgment, for his eyes to shutter.

Instead, Edward took a step forward and oh so carefully cupped her chin. He tilted her face up toward him. “You saved yourself. You took your own fate into your hands and you chose life. Nothing could be more admirable or powerful than that.”

Tears stung her eyes. “You’re not going to send me away, then?”

“Why would I do that?” he asked, shock tightening his features.

“B-because of what I have done. Where I have been.”

“I want you all the more because of what you have done, where you have been, and your will to survive.”

With the affection she now felt, she couldn’t help but forgive him for speaking to Yvonne about her. Far from rejecting her, he seemed to be accepting her completely. She wasn’t sure whether anyone else ever had.

There was no regret in his voice.

At last she asked, “What are we going to do?”

“It is not what I shall do. It is what you are going to do, Calypso.”

“And what is that?”

As one might swear a weighty vow, he looked full into her eyes. The anticipation in his own gaze was back, along with something strangely . . . deadly. She shivered even before his voice crawled low and worn like the gravel path, cold as ice along her skin. “You’re going to destroy the man who did this to you.”

T
he pistol’s shot cracked through the fog. Its butt kicked against Mary’s kid-gloved hand. In the far distance, through the swirling dawn air and across the dew-covered, crocus-dotted field, a puff of flour wafted into the mist. A grim dose of satisfaction welled up in her. It had taken less than twenty-four hours for Edward to begin to make good on his promise.

And she’d taken it on with a thirst-filled passion that shocked her. She’d only ever thought of hiding, of running, but never of fighting back. And in one moment Edward had changed all that.

Here in the frigid morning, under the first breath of spring, in a pair of deep blue breeches and a linen shirt lent from one of Edward’s smaller male servants, she felt oddly composed and alive. She loved the feel of loose male clothing, the small gray jacket buttoned just to her chin and the black boots that swallowed up her feet and covered her calves.

No wonder men kept their women in feminine clothes. What better way to imprison a woman than in corsets cinched with metal grommets that bent the ribs and gowns so drowning with fabric they left one entirely helpless.

“You’re a fine shot, Mary,” Edward announced proudly.

She turned to him, arm still outstretched, her body humming with exhilaration. “Indeed?”

Alarm burst past Edward’s lips. He jerked to the side. Keeping his eyes trained on the weapon, he lifted his black-gloved hand to her wrist, diverting the pistol. “I do. Just don’t use your skills on me.”

Mary pursed her lips, nodding. “’Twould be a shame to shoot such a fine teacher.”

Those long, strong fingers of his lingered upon her wrist, the leather of the gloves the only barrier between them. “It feels good, does it not?” he inquired. “Life or death in one definitive shot.”

Her heart shifted from its triumphant beat to a slower, stronger, more insistent one. She looked to his hand barely touching her, then up into his hard, dangerous face, and let her eyes drink him in. “Yes,” she replied. “But I don’t understand exactly why we’re doing this. I’m not going to kill anyone.”

His own gaze was unreadable, like twin depths of an opaque lake. He didn’t look away. Rather, he held her gaze until the chill of the morning evaporated under the heat of his stare. “You are doing this because you will never be at the mercy of another person again. You will always be able to defend yourself.”

It wasn’t gratitude she felt. It was something different. Something far more powerful. Something like seeing her eternal soul in his eyes.

She so longed to believe he didn’t care for her. That he was doing this purely for his own personal motives. If she believed that, her heart would be safe. But as his touch lingered upon her arm and his gaze deepened—alive with hot and tender emotions—she couldn’t stop hoping.

Could it be that he truly wanted her? Her life had been so full of sadness that it was hard to imagine.

And, god help her, her heart longed to open to
him.
Despite the risks. Despite the fear. Despite it all, she saw he had within him the potential to be her other half. If they could just take the chance. “Edward, I—”

He shook his head gently. “No words, Mary. Not yet.” Still holding her wrist in a gallant clasp, he knelt to the damp grass and plucked up a purple-throated flower, barely unfurled in its newness. He offered it up to her. A hypnotic symbol of her own life, and the trust between them, just beginning to open. “Just understanding.”

Understanding. A thing far more powerful than empty whispered nothings. He didn’t need to say what she knew. That the flower reminded him of her, bursting up from the icy landscape to embrace the sun. It was there on his face, the thoughts of his heart.

She took the bloom from his fingers, rolling the fragile stem carefully between her fingers, careful not to crush the fragile shoot, just as he was being careful not to hurt her.

Gently, he relinquished his grasp upon her arm, stood, and took the pistol from her. Then he withdrew a small silver and black powder horn from his pocket, focusing his attention on it. Methodically, he twisted the corker free. “There is an odd satisfaction in knowing that skill can shatter a man’s skull.”

As she twirled the little flower between her fingertips, she couldn’t deny the truth of it. Though she imagined it was only a truth to a person who had had everything taken away. She studied his precise yet sensual movements as he poured the small black grains into the mouth of the smooth black muzzle. “And if you miss?” she asked.

He slid the tamp from its place beneath the barrel and pressed down a small lead ball and the powder. “With skill, you miss by choice.”

She couldn’t help but wonder how many he had killed, for one who could speak so confidently on the subject clearly had experience. Yet the thought didn’t frighten her. It assured her. Edward didn’t just take life; he restored it.

He stood with perfect stillness as he lifted his arm in a smooth sweep, and without even seeming to aim stroked the trigger. Black powder burst around him as the pistol flashed. She didn’t need to look at the target to know he had hit it. Nor could she have looked—her gaze was locked upon him, upon his surety and knowledge that no one could harm him.

That was what she wanted, too.

She tucked the crocus into her belt, safe from the blows of battle, and held out her own gloved hand. “Again.”

He laughed, a rich, gorgeous sound. Lowering the pistol, he bowed his head to accommodate the difference in their heights. For one brief instant she was sure he was going to kiss her. Far from recoiling, her body rushed to life at the promise.

Tendrils of jetty hair brushed his forehead, softening his hard features as he said, “I have something new in mind.”

Her fingers ached to stroke back that rich black hair. “Do you?”

“Mmm.” He shoved the pistol into the waistband of his black trousers and bent to retrieve his coat from the damp grass. “It’s time to try something different.”

Mary frowned. He was not going to kiss her. Not now, at any rate. “I want to practice.”

“And you shall. Simply not this instant.” He snapped his coat out, shaking the damp grass from it, then swung it high and slid his arms into the black wool. A fascinating process of muscles and effortless movement. “Now I have something altogether different for you to turn your hand to.” Edward lifted his fingers to his lips and let out a sharp whistle.

Mary flinched at the punctured solitude of the quiet dawn. “What—?”

Out of the fog swirling through the oak trees on the edge of the field, a figure emerged. The transparent haze clung to the man, emphasizing his towering height and the darkness of his apparel. Even from across the field, she could feel his presence. It was as foreboding as Edward’s looks.

Mary took a step back, her foot sinking into the soft earth. “What are you doing?”

“Making you a woman to be reckoned with,” Edward stated calmly.

The elation she’d felt slipped away, replaced by her old fear. Fear of any man who might seize what little power she had. Why would Edward throw her into the company of someone else? She wasn’t ready to be among others. Especially other men. She held her ground. “I want the pistol,” she whispered.

“I’m sure you do, but I’ll not have you shooting a viscount.”

Viscount?
What was he playing at? “Did you tell him who I am?” she hissed, her blood pounding in her ears. She’d worked so hard to conceal herself. Now he was casting her into the dubious presence of others. And not just any others, but a noble.

She might be recognized—she looked just like her mother.

“She’s perfection with a pistol,” the tall man drawled as he neared them. His long stride ate up the earth as if it were no distance at all until he towered but a few feet before them.

Mary blinked at the sight of this contradictory figure. He was not at all demonic as she’d first suspected; in fact she was dazed by his angelic appearance. He was monstrously tall, taller even than Edward. His white-blond hair hung over his shoulders, the top half tied back from his face with a piece of black leather. A long black outrider’s coat clung to his frame, emphasizing his overshadowing build.

His icy, almost white-blue eyes stared down at her from a regal face. High cheekbones, a strong nose, and a jaw so sharp it might cut gave him the air of an unfeeling and otherworldly being. She quickly corrected her opinion. He looked exactly as she imagined the archangel Michael would appear.

As his eyes narrowed with interest, Mary caught sight of his abnormally small pupils. Was she mistaken, or was the man foolish enough to walk about after taking to his opium pipe?

His narrowed gaze trailed over her in a critical trace. “Good god, woman, don’t you eat? You’re rag and bone.”

The words, true but abrasive, hit her hard. She was eating—Edward had ensured that—but it was taking time to regain her strength. What a bastard this man was for pointing it out! An astounded breath escaped her lips before she drew herself up and replied, “’Tis a trifle early to be chasing dragons, my lord, don’t you think?”

The frigid man’s brows barely rose and his nostrils flared. Emotions seemed to unleash from his cold control for the barest moment, but then the edges of his lips tilted in dry amusement. “One must assume you, too, have gone after a dragon or two, madam, to recognize the signs.”

She tensed at being caught out, then glared up at him. What strange god had a hold over this man? And why was Edward merely standing there? She wanted to dart behind him, but he was not offering his body as protection. She would have to brave it out.

Mary clung to the defiance and strength Edward had rekindled within her. “I own to it.”

The man smirked, his blond brow arching. “Not surprising for a whore’s daughter.”

The accusation, true though it might be, rang shrilly in her ears. It also meant he knew
exactly
who she was. “I beg your pardon?”

“That is what you are,” he said slowly, pointedly, explaining as one to a small child. “A whore’s daughter.”

She sputtered, anger bursting alive inside her. No one but her father had dared say such a thing to her face. “You—How dare you—”

“Can you deny it?” He leaned down toward her, his long blond hair hanging about his face like a silver curtain. His icy eyes held hers mercilessly. “Can you deny she spread her legs to any man willing to pay the price? Before she became a duchess, of course.” His mouth quirked into a knowing smile. “And if I were to pay you, you’d no doubt forget His Grace and come dancing to my tune.”